Yesterday I went on a class trip to London and part of that was a tour around the Tate Modern. The lady giving the tour was great! And while there's so much I could share about the art we saw and the things I learnt, I really just want to focus on the inspiring way she described what art does. Walking around, looking at the art, the way the space of the building is used and how the features of the building play into what is trying to be demonstrated and created, our guide told us about how art pokes at us, knocks us back and knocks us over, forcing us to think differently. It connects us with the sublime; something different and other and beyond us, and as we stood in the huge turbine hall that used to house turbines in every inch of space to create electricity, we were confronted with the impressiveness of human ingenuity but also our vulnerability, as small as ants. Then watching people playing on the swings in the main hall, we were encouraged to see them as a space where someone is forced to meet others and either ignore or embrace the stranger. Art tells us to ask questions rather than just hold prejudices; when we look at it, we can't escape the way it pervades our thinking, and it forces us to be brave to get to know it - to allow it to affect how we feel, and our views. Art also tells us to not believe what we see - to remind us that we don't know it all, and to search deeper and know that we still might never know it all. We always try to put things - and people - into boxes, but once we do neither can they change nor can we see anything else in them than what we have decided. Art teaches us to challenge this deciding who people are and what they can be - art can force us to consider other potentialities, and it can be more than one thing to different people or the same person at different times.
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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April 2020
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